


Hell Bent

by fortissimo_hands (skulls_and_stripes)



Series: Face the Pidgeot [2]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Gold & Silver & Crystal | Pokemon Gold Silver Crystal Versions
Genre: F/M, Inspired by Doctor Who, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:28:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22123348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skulls_and_stripes/pseuds/fortissimo_hands
Summary: (part 2 of a series. does not make any sense without reading part 1.)Ethan's gone through hell and back to defeat the legendary Red Tajiri, just to impress his crush. But his crush has other plans.
Relationships: Hibiki | Ethan | Gold/Kris, Kris/Silver
Series: Face the Pidgeot [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1592305
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	Hell Bent

Her companion perks up its antennae at the noise before she can even hear it.

It’s not that the Pokemon has better hearing than her, but rather that it anticipates the noise with more ease. Time, after all, is a construct, and if time is a construct, so is speed. To an all-powerful deity, of what practical consequence is the speed of sound?

But, to a mere human who is only tangentially related to the concept of non-linear perceptions of time, the speed of sound is of great practical consequence indeed. By the time she hears the noise, it has already been made.

Hurriedly, she takes a peculiar Poke Ball out of her pocket and returns her companion, placing the ball in her pocket. New Bark is a small town, and normally she can afford to take a few risks by having it out, but this unknown noise indicates the presence of someone who is a stranger to her.

The noise is a twangy note, slightly out of tune, and it repeats a few seconds later, closer to the correct pitch. She lacks the necessary musical ability to tell what note it is, but it’s clearly a low note, something that would be found in the bass clef rather than treble. Another note is played soon after, around a fourth or a fifth above, and again, slightly out of tune. Once more, it’s soon repeated, but closer to the correct tuning.

The timbre of the instrument and the inconsistency of the tuning seems to dictate that the source of this noise is someone tuning their acoustic guitar. The problem is that, in a town as small as New Bark, she can count the total residents on her fingers. 

She would know if there was a fellow guitarist.

Curiously, she follows the noise. She soon finds the source -- a young boy of around eleven or twelve, sitting on the grass. He’s staring wistfully into the distance, a gold-coloured guitar in his lap as he tunes it with an app on his PokeGear.

She looks at him. There’s a grey backpack on his back, and he’s wearing a red hoodie with black shorts. He has a black and gold backwards cap on, though she thinks she can see a black fringe peeking out from the front. She stands over him. “Hi.”

He looks up at her. He stares her up and down, taking in her appearance -- her teal hair tied into impossible gravity-defying pigtails, her hot pink top and white jacket, her gold and black shorts. “Hi,” he says, seeming a little surprised at her presence.

They make eye contact. There’s a connection. Or rather, there was a connection. 

One knows everything. The other feels a sudden, inexplicable wave of deja vu.

Both choose to ignore this.

“Where are you from?” she asks. “This is a small town and I don’t remember seeing you.”

“I’ve lived here all my life,” he answers. “Though I only recently returned from a journey. Where are you from?”

“I moved here when I was two,” she says, frowning. “If you’d been here all this time, we would have met.”

“Well, one of us must be lying,” he says, in a somewhat accusatory tone. “And you don’t look Johtonese.” At her raised eyebrow, he elaborates, “Your hair. It’s teal, like those people from that Hoennian city. The one that’s from a meteor?”

Well, this child has clearly failed geography. “Sootopolis. My parents are from there, yes … but we moved here years ago. Maybe we just haven’t met because you’ve been traveling?”

“Maybe,” he says smugly. “I traveled through the entire Johto region, and Kanto! I even went to Mt. Silver…” At this, he frowns, but his smile quickly returns with childlike resilience. “What about you? Do you travel?”

She smirks. “From time to time.” 

The boy, of course, assumes that she means that she travels on occasion but not consistently, or that she goes through periods of traveling interspersed with periods of stagnation.

She lets him think that.

As he finishes tuning the last string of the guitar, he strums a few chords to test it. He smiles. “Mind if I play something?”

“I’d love to hear it.”

The piece he plays is not what she would expect from an eleven-year-old guitarist. It’s a rather whimsical-sounding piece, with more focus on the melody and fingering than most casual guitarists would know, with the chords used only as occasional harmonic accompaniment. It’s one of those pieces that leaves her feeling like she’s just left a movie theatre -- the same sense of achievement despite having not achieved anything. She’s not sure if it’s a happy song or a sad one.

“Is it a sad song?” she asks.

“Nothing’s sad till it’s over,” he answers darkly. “Then everything is.”

“What’s it called?”

He hesitates. “I think it’s called … Crystal.”

Some people would connect that word with a gemstone or necklace. Others would connect it with a collectible item from their favourite video game. This girl immediately deduces that it is a name.

“Tell me about her.”

The boy is too young and too naive to process that she improbably deduced that he was referring to a person. “Well…”

* * *

The first place they went was Pallet Town, to find Red’s loved ones -- his mother and his friend. He exchanged some loving words with his mother, but upon searching, he couldn’t find Green Oak. He asked Professor Oak, who explained that Green was now the Gym Leader in Viridian City.

This, of course, became their new destination.

They ran into the Gym, and Green was so overjoyed that he just kissed Red, which was… surprising. Ethan thought that if the two were publically a couple, someone would have mentioned it. Then again, Red was eleven when the two last saw each other; he supposes they could have easily disguised their relationship as prepubescent friendships to fool the media. 

As Red left to use the bathroom -- a task that took longer than it should have, because three years of isolation had left him barely remembering what a toilet is -- Green insisted that Ethan sit down, have a cup of coffee, and listen to his endless gratitude for Red’s safe return. Ethan, in turn, thanked Green and explains how he helped, in some small way.

Green probably thought he was insane when he explained how Green’s Pidgeot inspired him to keep going thanks to a story his mother told him and a time-traveling mythical Pokémon. 

Ethan let him think that.

He secretly hated Green’s never-ending gratitude, and when Red returned, he took his chance. He snuck out of the Gym, lost in the crowd of annoyed trainers who didn’t understand the Leader’s sudden hiatus. He just needed to get out, away from Green thinking he was insane. Besides, he had a message and he needed a messenger.

He tried to get a trainer’s attention, but they were all too busy protesting at the Gym’s closure. He spotted an old man -- the same one, if he remembered right, who made news headlines three years ago when he decided to lie in the street, as some weird protest against his lack of morning coffee. 

“Hey, you,” he said, tapping the man’s shoulder. “Do a young trainer a favor for me?”

“Don’t you think you ought to show your elders a little more respect?” snapped the man.

“Okay boomer,” answered Ethan without missing a beat. “Be a pal, and look for a girl with teal hair. In pigtails. She’s, uh, around my age, and she normally wears a red top with a white jacket. She should come here soon. I need you to send her a message.”

The man sighed. “What’s the message?”

“Tell her I’m back. Tell her I know what she did -- what we did -- and I’m on my way. And if she asks who I am, tell her I came the long way around.”

* * *

Cooltrainer Megan and Ace Trainer Blake looked on at him in shock. Nobody made eye contact. Nobody battled him.

Psychic Eli gave him an anxious look. “Turn back. You’re interfering in matters you don’t understand.”

Ethan, of course, ignored him. 

He used his red Gyarados to surf across the water and climb the waterfalls. He ducked into the cave. It was the same as it always was -- there was a broken radio leaning against one wall, and other than that it was an empty, claustrophobic space.

Kris, of course, was already there.

“Do you remember?” he asked.

“How could I forget?”

She smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile.

It wasn’t a sad one either.

“How many iterations do you remember?” he asked.

“Just the second-last one, since that’s the one where you explained everything.”

“I explained everything every time,” he muttered, audibly exhausted.

Kris frowned. “You remember all of them?”

“How could I forget?” he echoed.

She took a seat on the rock floor. “How many times?”

Ethan frowned, deep in thought. “Two hundred.”

Her jaw dropped.

“But -- they must have been at least a few weeks each! And -- are you still eleven?! How does that work?!”

He shrugged. “I don’t really know what’s up with my age. I still think I have an eleven-year-old’s brain, but with centuries of experience. It’s … freaky.”

“But you kept going.”

“Not exactly by choice.” At her raised eyebrow, he continued. “After every iteration, Celebi wiped my memories. Just so I would always think it was the first time. But … the memory wipe mustn’t have been very strong. Every time, while I was battling him, I saw a Pidgeot. And that reminded me.”

Her eyebrow remained raised.

“Oh yeah, I forgot, I didn’t explain that part. Um, the whole idea came from a story my mum told me when I was little!”

“Go on,” she prompted.

“Okay, so basically in the story … There’s this farmer who asks an Ace Trainer, ‘How long is eternity?’ And the Ace Trainer says, ‘Imagine a mountain as tall as Mt. Silver, but made entirely of diamond. And every hundred years, a Pidgeot comes and sharpens its beak on the mountain. When the entire mountain has been chiseled away, the first second of eternity has passed.’”

“That’s an impressive time,” muttered Kris.

“It’s an impressive Pidgeot.”  
  
Her eyes widened and she shook her head. “I’m still in shock from remembering one of them.” She frowned, glancing at the broken radio in the corner of the room. “Why were you so determined to beat him?”

He smirked. “Why do you think?”

Kris bit at her lip. She looked back at the broken radio. She sighed. “Ethan, you know that can never happen.”

“Of course it can!” He took a few steps toward her, grinning widely.

She stood up, holding up a hand in refusal. “No.” Her voice was firm. “Ethan, I like you too. But … you’re not the only one I like. And you know that with Silver and Celebi on my side, I’ll never be able to stop running from Team Rocket. I could never ask you to run with me.”

“I know,” said Ethan sadly, stepping uncomfortably close to Kris. “As long as you’re with Silver, your life will always be too chaotic for me.” He slings an arm around her shoulder uncomfortably. “And as long as you know Silver, you’ll never leave him.”

“I know,” she agreed, half-sighing.

“But you don’t have to know Silver.”

“Wha-- What?!” she gasped, moving away from him in shock. Ethan held up the gold and silver ball, the one that she was sure was in her pocket. The pocket his hand was uncomfortably close to…

_“After every iteration, Celebi wiped my memories.”_

“Ethan!” she yelled.

Ethan sighed. “I’m sorry.”

* * *

“So you decided to wipe Kris’s memories?”

Ethan gives a hollow laugh. “Of course. I thought it was the only way we could be together … and I wanted us to be together so badly, I went against her wishes. It wasn’t until after that I realised how wrong I was.”

“Well…” The teal-haired girl hesitates. “Maybe there’s some way you can find her again and restore her memory.”

He shakes his head. “It’s too late now.”

“Why?”

“...It’s a long story.”

And they have a long time.

* * *

Ethan sighed. “I’m sorry.”

He tossed the Poke Ball and caught it. “Ethan…” begged Kris. “Please don’t do this.”

“This is the only way for us to be together,” he insisted. “One day you’ll understand.”

“Ethan, please,” she begged. “Someone’s memories are the most valuable thing a person can have! You spent centuries trying to beat Red, and it was because of your Pokemon’s memories and experiences that you made it in the end. Would you want to lose that?!”

“You didn’t spend centuries fighting Red. What are the memories you value so highly?”

“All of them!” she snapped. “Our past, our experiences … those are what make us ourselves! Ethan, I’m begging you … if you have any respect for me, you’ll let me stay with Silver.”

Ethan sent out Celebi. “Celebi, use Psychic!” As the Psychic-type powered up for the move, he muttered, “...I’m sorry, Crystal.”

“...No, Ethan. _I’m_ sorry.”

There was a flash of light, as he expected from the memory-wipe. And then everything went blurry.

He seemed to be on the ground. His head ached. A blurry, skin-coloured blob stood over him. 

“I have Celebi on my side,” she said. “I have literally an infinite amount of time to think of a plan, and you thought you could outsmart me?”

“What … ?”

“I’m sorry.” She took a step away from him. “Run, you clever boy. And be a Trainer.”

* * *

“Wait, so how much do you remember?”

Ethan frowns, trying to think. “Everything that happened before I met her -- so, up until after I beat Green for the first time. The last iteration of me beating Red. And … what I just told you, obviously. But I don’t remember all of it.”

The teal-haired girl frowns. “How much do you remember about Kris?”

“Her first name. And I’m not sure about that. I don’t know her surname or what she looked like, or where she went, so I can’t look for her. And the song I composed…” He plays a few notes, to aid in her memory. “I feel like it’s related to her, though I don’t know how.”

“Wow.” The girl sighs. “So you were willing to spend centuries fighting Red to impress her, and now you can never find her again?”

“Hey, don’t be so pessimistic!” he insists with childlike resilience. “I can never look for her. But who knows! I’ve got my whole life to find her again. And if we meet by chance, I’ll know it’s her, for sure!”

Crystal sighs.

“So that’s my story. What about you? I don’t even know your name.”

“...”

“What’s your name?”

“I’d better go.” She stands up. “I think Team Rocket’s on my trail.”

“Okay.” 

He lets her go.

By the time he processes her final words, she’s out of sight. He rushes to his feet, glancing around wildly, desperate for any sign of her. “Kris…”

He sits back down.

He plays the song on his guitar.

He lets her go. She was never his in the first place.


End file.
